Wright is bogging down the discussion by continuing to take dikaiosunē theou as a technical term for God’s covenant faithfulness without providing a convincing rationale. His justification-revision project may be crumbling on simple linguistics. In taking dikaiosunē theou as a technical term, Wright seemingly grants himself the freedom to disregard context when it fits his designs. (The phrase “technical term” in Wright nearly functions as a kind of signal to the reader that he is importing concepts not natively found in the text at hand; the phrase “controlling narrative” appears to be another such marker.) He uses dikaiosunē and pistis interchangeably when it fits his system and differently when it does not (p. 203). Wright cannot maintain “righteous” as “covenantally faithful” throughout his exegetical chapters, as his treatment of a key text like Romans 3:25–26 demonstrates (p. 206).
Along these lines, Wright’s explanation of 2 Cor 5:21 remains unpersuasive because he has not established that dikaiosunē theou means covenant faithfulness. Point after point, his exegesis is predicated on his understanding of dikaiosunē theou, but he provides no OT (or other) support for his view, merely assuming it as fact (p. 217). He then uses the phrase to draw in the “controlling narrative” of Israel and Abraham where it is not demonstrably in the apostle’s mind.
Here we locate a considerable difference between Piper and Wright. Piper may stand to reckon more with Abraham, but Wright has made too much of the patriarch. And in doing so, Wright is unwilling to work any further backward than Gen 12, saying that “Abraham is where it all starts” (p. 217). This gets at a sizeable shortcoming in Wright: He does not go back far enough and ask the ultimate questions. What is God’s purpose in creation before there ever was a covenant with Abraham—or ever was creation? Why most ultimately does God mean “to set the world to rights”? Was God righteous before he made a covenant with Abraham? Was he righteous before he created the world? Because Wright begins with Abraham and does not grapple with the ultimate questions, his base is shallow and the structure is unstable.
Since I haven’t read either book, I can’t say too much about this. But 1) Wright has said repeatedly Abraham was a “new Adam” chosen to deal with sin and bring salvation (whether he reiterates the point in the book I cannot say); and 2) Wright’s view on the righteousness of God is, to my mind, completely convincing. I am thankful to God I got pointed in this direction by Wright and find it incredible that people are digging in their heels on this point. If there is a counter-argument, this review didn’t bother to articulate it.
Reader beware: Doug commends the review and Doug, unlike me, has read both books. That is weighty to my mind, but so far I haven’t changed my opinion on the Wright that I have read.
“Wright cannot maintain “righteous” as “covenantally faithful” throughout his exegetical chapters, as his treatment of a key text like Romans 3:25–26 demonstrates (p. 206).”
I don’t get it. Do words have to mean the same thing in every context?
Good stuff, Mark. Thanks.
@andrew: The argument would seem to be that claiming “technical term” status for something in Paul should lead us to expect it’s technical use to be consistent throughout the work.
If I was talking “infusion” in the technical theological sense, but then digressed to use it in the sense of a tea bag, that would be odd.
I guess the upshot is that Wright would need a rationale for why the term might not always be technical when it isn’t being used in a clearly technical way. If its a bad rationale, that would be special pleading.
I think Wright does a good job of something like this with “doing the law” which Paul uses in the “technical sense” of keeping the law that none can do, but then switches gears and fills with new meaning = “having faith” (though not in a contractual way, but in a way that, since it gets you the same end as the Law promised but could never fulfill. Nowadays you can’t say that, because everyones afraid of ‘confusion’ over what RCs say.
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I guess my response to that would be it’s holding Wright to an unrealistic standard of “technical term”. It’s “technical” in the sense that it assumes a high degree of background knowledge (though I think the plain sense of the term, that of “doing the right thing” is obvious enough, and logically requires both God’s covenant faithfulness (if he makes a promise, the right thing to do is to keep it) and his just judgment (if he makes a law he must enforce it)), but not that it only ever has that one technical meaning. A technical term, too, can have shades of meaning.
Ultimately, it seems like Wright’s critics have to take his statements in the most uncharitable (and absurd, given even Wright’s Romans commentary, let alone his entire corpus) way possible to be able to criticize him in that manner.
Yeah, there is a lot of suspicion in the review I didn’t like.
“Is Wright creating a space” for some nefarious evil doctrine to be put in later? (maybe by SOMEONE ELSE) makes Wright out as a Machiavellian calculator.